Today's question for Dr. B (our resident early development specialist) is about challenging and attention seeking behavior in children.

It was submitted by Kelly (from Dances with Chaos), who would like to perform an exorcism on her tantrum prone four-year-old (pictured left) before the little devil drives her out of her mind.

Editor's Note: If the picture weren't cropped, I'm almost positive you would see the word "HANDFUL" hanging directly over his head.

The strategies were written specifically for Kelly's question, but Dr. B assures me that you can use them for almost any age. (How 'bout a 37 year-old manchild?)

———————

Dear Dr. B,

On some days I have a sweet, adorable four-year-old little boy. On other days it's like I gave birth to the devil himself. I know most of the time, he's just testing me, but other times, it's as if my son is seriously possessed. Last week, we had a day when he had over thirty meltdowns. It was absolute insanity. In these moments, he doesn’t listen. Or he simply doesn’t care what I'm saying. And he goes ballistic if I fail to bow to his wishes. I've tried redirection, rewards, and punishments. But typically it doesn’t matter what I do/say/threaten – he acts as he pleases. To confuse me further, other days he is a paragon of virtue: listening, obeying, and helping me take care of his 1 1/2 year old sister. Sometimes he switches from “devil” to “angel” in the same day, as though swapped with another child.

Is he just testing me in “normal” ways? Or is my son destined to turn into a bullying brat intent on world domination?

And what can I do in the meantime to keep from going insane??

Please help.— Kelly

Dear Kelly,

Challenging behavior is often triggered when a child is denied something they want or when a demand is placed on them that they can’t or don’t want to do. Similarly, the challenging behavior continues because it worked in the past by helping the child either obtain what he wanted (e.g., a tantrum leads to getting the toy) or avoid the task he didn't want (e.g., a tantrum leads to a delayed bedtime).

You can break this negative cycle by observing what happens right before and after the challenging behavior to find ways to avoid your child's triggers and respond in ways that don't maintain or reward the negative behavior.

It is not uncommon for children to seek attention in inappropriate ways after the birth of a new sibling since they no longer have their parents’ undivided attention. As a result, many children try out new ways to get attention that are both positive and negative. The negative behavior continues when it is very effective at getting the attention the child may be lacking at the moment. This does not mean you are providing your child any less love or affection, it simply means that your child wants to say, “I need you,” “give me a hug,” "do you still love me as much you did before I had a sister?" “show me you care about every little thing I do – RIGHT NOW!” But instead, the child misbehaves because they don’t have the insight to recognize they want attention and don’t have the skill to ask for it.

You can test this theory out by observing what happens right before the behavior (is the attention removed from him for a moment to focus on his sister or other household chores?) and what happens after (does the attention immediately shift back to him?).

5 Effective Strategies to Prevent and Respond to Bad Behavior Used to Obtain Desirable Items or Attention:

1. Increase the positive attention provided, especially at times when less attention is usually available (e.g., have him help with dinner preparations or praise him from a distance for playing nicely while you are busy changing his sister, etc.)

2. Ignore inappropriate behavior used to get attention or to obtain something that was denied (when the behavior is not aggressive or harmful to others). The benefit of ignoring is that your son will learn that positive behavior has a powerful pay-off, while his negative behavior is ineffective and therefore no longer necessary.

3. Teach your child to ask for what they want in a more appropriate way. If they are seeking attention, teach them to ask you for a hug, help, or a turn playing with you. If he wants an item, teach him to ask nicely. Remember to praise him for asking you for attention or items appropriately, even when it may not be the best time (e.g., Great job asking nicely. Mom is on the phone right now. I’ll help you when I’m finished).

4. Set aside special alone time with each parent (e.g., 5 minutes of special play time per night and/or a special weekend outing).

5. Avoid triggers for the behavior such as the word, “no.” Instead of telling your child what not to do (e.g., No screaming), tell him what to do (e.g., Ask nicely). Similarly, instead of telling him he can’t have something (“We are not playing with toys now”), tell him when the desired item will be available (“You can watch TV after dinner).

5 Effective Strategies to Prevent and Respond to Bad Behavior Used to Escape or Avoid an Undesirable Task

1. Offer choices to increase motivation and interest in performing less desirable tasks (e.g., If a child usually resists getting dressed, instead of saying, “Its time to get dressed,” give choices such as “Do you want to wear a red or blue,” or “Which do you want to put on first, your shirt or pants?” Also, increase your child’s opportunity to make choices throughout the day so that he feels more control over his environment and learns to be responsible for the decisions he makes.

2. Avoid power struggles by picking and choosing your battles carefully. In other words, if you don’t have the time and energy to respond effectively and avoid giving in, say yes from the start.

3. Create a visual schedule with pictures to represent your daily routine. Sometimes challenging behavior occurs because children don’t know what is going to happen next or when the activity or item they want will be available again. Instead of telling your child what to do or what he can’t have, use the schedule to show him what he needs to do and when enjoyable activities are available. For example, when your child is misbehaving because you asked him to stop playing, instead of focusing on the behavior, direct his attention to the schedule and say, “Play time is finished. It is time for bed. We will play again tomorrow morning.”

4. Change the timing of specific undesirable activities to come before more desirable activities. For instance, if your child resists brushing their teeth, plan something fun to do afterward, such as special reading time with mom or dad. When they begin to exhibit resistant behavior, say, “First brush your teeth, then we will read a book together.” If you use a visual schedule as mentioned above, you can say this while pointing to the pictures.

5. Make the task or demand easier to accomplish successfully. Sometimes children misbehave because the task is too difficult or overwhelming. For example, it might be too much to expect a child to clean up all of their toys when we ask; however, they may respond very well when we ask them to put one toy away at a time with some praise along the way (e.g., Please put the red block in the box. Great job putting the block away. Put the green block in the box, etc.).

Finally, in order to keep yourself from going insane, I highly recommend taking adult time-outs. Sometimes we need a moment to step away from the situation, take a deep breath, and then come back when we feel calm and in control of our own emotions. Only then are we able to respond and assess the situation effectively.

You may also wish to consult with a mental health professional to determine whether your son’s behavior falls within normal developmental limits and to help you select strategies that may work best for your son.

Best of luck,Dr. B

If you have a question for Dr. B, please email me at myshort@mommyshorts.com.

19 Responses to “10 Strategies to Deal with Challenging and Attention Seeking Behavior”

Thanks, Dr. B!
I really like the schedule idea so he knows what comes next. Usually we just tell him verbally because we’ve learned it cuts down on meltdowns, but I think visually would help even more.
To make him think of his choices visually and with consequences, we developed a Discipline DEFCON system, which rewards good behavior (and sets parameters for the bad) and we’re having a fair amount of success in a short time: http://danceswithchaos.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/a-plea-to-dr-b-and-defcon-update-by-the-numbers/
Most of the instances of acting otu (I’d say 90%) involve him picking on his little sister. I’m trying to find a better way to not give him negative attention, yet not have her squashed because she’s a little small for WWF or to play the evil villain to his superhero…

i need advice, my son was an only child for 10 yrs, now we have a baby girl. We love each child equally, of course she needs more attention. My son is also being bullied at school, between both of these issues, he is crying all the time and doesn’t want to go to school. I try to get him to go, its a consent battle. when he does go, with in ten minutes of dropping him off, i get a call from the guidance councler saying that he is crying and wants to come home. He cries, screams and gets in my face yelling at me. i dont know what to do.

help I am a granny how looks after 4 grand children after scool. I get the homework done, after school actives etc. I have a problem. They are all well behaved until one of the moms come to collect them. The oldest is a girl of 9 years, she tends to get very upset with the teasing that she gets from her two boy cousins. She withdraws and becomes very nasty and mean. How do I deal with this situation. Remembering that there are 4 children involved.
Thanks
Mag.

If you have used all these wonderful strategies and still have problems then cutting out foods with fructose in it might help. Over 20 years ago my son was a placid undemanding child for the majority of the time but would randomly turn into a devil with shiny bright eyes. My amazing mother who was way ahead of her time, after a few years research, narrowed the behaviour down to a reaction to fructose. It was easy to start with because he had an obvious reaction when occasionaly given sweets – the worst reaction was to Mars Bars. But he was still having this reaction even when he hadnt had sweets for weeks. She realised that the common ingredient in reactive foods was fructose and when we cut it out completely by being vigilant with food labeling it almost stopped. The final stage was that she found out that bread that is proved fast by supermarkets ends up with fructose in it but bread that was proved in the traditional way did not. We never had any problems after that. This has worked for many friends children who had intermittent behavioural problems and i hope it might help someone else on this site.

Is there some way to fix the situation at school? Or possibly have him moved? If he is being bullied that is a very stressful thing. Add to that a little sister and him becoming a preteen I’m sure he is extremely stressed out.
Where I live there are sometimes in-school programs where an adult comes into the school as a buddy to someone. You should check in your community if there are any situations like that.
Have you talked to the teacher? Is there any way he could help your son feel better in the class or keep a closer eye out for any social issues or bullying problems.
Are there any clubs or activities your son could join in the school? If school is nothing but work and bullying it may be beneficial to see if there is some extracurricular activity he would enjoy.
You may also want to do something special with just him, even if it’s just once a week, as well as a small thing you can do once a day (he’s still young enough you could start reading a book together without it being weird) you could spend 20 minutes a night reading him a chapter book. I suggest something like reading a book because you can do it at virtually any time during the day, it promotes reading, and it can be as short or long as either of you like. It also opens up discussions.
If you can make his school life less stressful I’m betting his home behavior will improve. For now I would try to give him a small break time when he gets home from school to decompress and work on having him talk instead of screaming/crying. If he does scream or get in your face, or seems like he’s revving up to do that, I would send him to his room or move yourself away from him. When things are calmer I would give a consequence for that behavior but also try to get him to speak to you without yelling.
Anyway, I hope some of that could be helpful to you!

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A lot of attention seeking behavior is unfortunately positively re-enforced by the caregiver. Like whining to get everything, even things they obviously can have (e.g. milk at breakfast time). Instead of redirecting them to say “please”, mom fetches the milk, then six months later she can’t understand why the kid whines for EVERYTHING. The very first time a kid exhibits a behavior the caregiver needs to decide if they want to see that behavior 500 more times. If the answer is no, a gentle redirection is in order. Do you want your kid to open the fridge and help themselves (i.e. force you to drop what you’re doing to run in and help them so they don’t make a huge mess)? Do you want your kid turning on the TV themselves? Do you want the kid hanging on to your legs when you’re standing in front of the hot stove? Do you want your kid to demand your instant and full attention at a moment’s notice so they can deliver an interesting factoid like “dogs are brown”? Decide now and redirect now. It’s much easier to prevent a behavior pattern from forming than it is to untrain an established behavior.

I definitely agree with the patterns and schedules. A kid is much less likely to have a melt down over park time being over if they know they’re coming back the next day. Also definitely agree with more positive attention. More park time, more helping in the kitchen, more play time, more stories. If your default position is to ignore them you’re training them that the only way they get attention is to demand it.